5 Top Skills Your Next BD Manager Must Have To Drive More Business
Your Business Development Managers might boast of prestigious schools and great educational accolades. But is that enough?
While educational background and experience are markers of possible success in the field, there are some counterintuitive traits that can make certain BD Managers stand out from the crowd. In start-ups and small-sized organizations that tend to have leaner teams in the formative years, this one hire can make all the difference!
While all BD Managers must have great communication skills, a strong work ethic and a good understanding of the market, it could be doubly beneficial to hire someone with that X-factor.
This article will describe 5 different traits that can help you identify a good BD Manager. While this list is not exhaustive or might not suit your current specific situation, it might give you a perspective on what a business development manager should have; and help you make a more informed decision while choosing between two similar candidates.
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Optimistic
Business Development as a process is volatile and unpredictable. It is often fraught with uphill climbs and disappointments. While there are occasional wins, BD Managers need to keep putting one foot in front of the other in spite of multiple rejections, signs of adversity, and loss of opportunities. This could be from their reporting managers or external clients. BD Managers man the responsibility of imagining and striving for a better tomorrow for the organization.
When trying to hire an optimistic BD Manager, look for people who are creative problem solvers with a positive mindset; those willing to think outside the box and the boundaries set by you. These are the people you want on your team. You can also give them a scenario to see how they think - like loss of market share, new tougher competition, etc and ask them to share what positive opportunities can arise from it.
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Hungry for knowledge
This is an important trait for any employee. But that said, a BD Manager who is hungry for knowledge is likely to do better than someone who thinks they know everything. It is always a great idea to work with people who are self-motivated and want to get better themselves.
While interviewing a potential candidate, look for stories that involve them learning something on the job, or taking extra time to learn a new skill, or a cross functional skill that can complement their current role. Or someone with varied interests and is passionate about honing those skills.
Alternatively you can also ask them about the last experience they had working on some project or with a client with limited knowledge and how they handled it, how they reacted or felt.
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Balance & tradeoffs
Negotiations are a huge part of a BD Manager’s role. While many candidates may be adept at negotiations, it is also important to understand how to manage difficult tradeoffs.
To figure out how a candidate thinks, you can ask them to make forced business choices or financial trade offs and see how they handle it.
For example, say the BD Manager gets a solid lead and a promising client. But realizes that we can’t exactly match the client’s ask. What would they do? Would they still chase it?
Chasing the lead would mean a lot of time and resources invested (without the guarantee of a satisfied customer), while letting go of it could mean loss of opportunity but saving everyone’s time.
Why would they choose and why?
This could give you a deep insight into the way the candidate thinks and functions, what are their reasons, how they make choices and balance tradeoffs. The recommendations the BD Managers make should be in line with the goals and vision of the organization.
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In for the long game
The process of business development is a journey, an ongoing process that often takes time and consistent effort. But as human beings, we are wired for instant gratification. We want everything here and now.
When looking to hire a BD Manager who can perform better than the average person, pick the one who is likely to wait for the second marshmallow.
It is important to figure out how they view the future, how they react to uncertainty and how they place their strategic bets. It could be interesting to imagine various scenarios and see how they react or would like to handle them.
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Make Connections
Business development is rarely a linear progression. Often BD Managers are required to think out of the box, look for opportunities where they seem none and make connections that can open up potential doors in the future.
Though this might sound commonsensical, the ability to connect two varied people, events, situations, topics, is a rarity. Even if the connections are imaginary, you want a BD Manager who can find a way to fill in a gap, create an opportunity by finding partnerships, investors, collaborators and more. Sometimes these connections may not work out and the hypothesis might be wrong. But you want BD Managers who can take that chance and see what is possible.
You can try giving a potential candidate two random situations and see if they can find any connections between them and evaluate how those connections can become an opportunity for your organization.
Conclusion
We all want the top talent. But in order to get BD Managers with an X -factor, look beyond the basic skills of communication and negotiation. You want someone who has the right mindset, who is willing to take chances and can give you fresh perspectives.
And if you need help in hiring brilliant BD Managers who stand apart from the crows, do reach out to us.
FlexiBees has a large pool of 35K+ experienced and qualified women. We have a deep vetting process that matches the right candidate to your exact business needs, sans the biases. We will do all the preselection for you and provide you with only the best three screened candidates for interviewing.
And if you are convinced and want to explore the option of hiring flexible candidates via FlexiBees, drop us a line.
